Blog & News

PropertyMutual brings you industry relevant headlines and comment.

Good schools have come out top in a survey of parents in the UK asked about their priorities when choosing a place to live.
Some 72% of parents placed a good local school among their top three, followed by 37% favouring somewhere with good transport links and 33% highlighting the importance of a community feel, according to the research from Redrow Homes.
Being close to family members came fourth overall but, while this was a big priority for 33% of mums, only 22% of dads saw it as important.

House prices in key cities in the UK increased by 3.8% in the three months to April 2016 and were up 10.4% year on year, according to the latest index.
But there is considerable variation with Cambridge leading the annual growth with prices up 15.8% whereas in Aberdeen prices fell by 6.1% year on year, the data from the Hometrack cities index shows.
The report says that this time last year growth was slowing in the run up to the UK’s general election and looking ahead growth could slow again in the run up to June’s referendum on the future of the UK in the European Union.

Demand for housing in the UK is at its lowest level in two years with the number of house hunters making enquiries down by a fifth in April, new research shows.
Estate agents also reported that the number of sales made to first time buyers fell in April.
The April Housing Market report from the National Association of Estate Agents (NAEA) shows there were 325 house hunters registered per member branch on average last month.

At each end of Oxford Street, arguably the UK’s most famous shopping district, stands an imposing reminder of the 1960s.
At one end is Centre Point tower, a grade-II listed building overlooking Tottenham Court Road, which is currently shrouded in construction wrapping. At the other, the less architecturally attractive Marble Arch Tower’s days are numbered: it is due to be demolished in the coming months and replaced with a new tower.
Both sites were in need of a serious overhaul when developer Almacantar bought them in 2011 with the intention of turning them into luxury flats.

Some 36% of landlords in the UK have had property abandoned by tenants before, according to new figures from the largest landlord association.
Abandonment occurs when a tenant moves out of a property before the tenancy has ended, without informing their landlord. The issue can be costly as it often occurs when outstanding rent is owed.
However, the tenant still has a legal right to return and take up residence at any time and it is a criminal offence for landlords to do anything to prevent the continuation of the tenancy.
The only option for a landlord is to go through the legal process for regaining possession of an abandoned property which can take months.

Globe-trotting oligarchs. Dodgy offshore companies. Wealthy weekenders and expensive rural cottages snapped up by hedge fund managers. There are plenty of people out there arguing that the problems in Britain’s housing market can be pinned on foreigners in London and on wealthy second-homers in the countryside.

The UK government has pledged to build a million new homes in the next five years but the latest construction figures show that in the first quarter of 2016 building starts were down.
The data from the Department of Communities and Local Government (DGLC), shows that there were 35,530 house building starts in England, down 3% when compared to the final quarter of 2015.
Completions were estimated at 32,950, some 9% lower than the previous quarter and 3% lower than a year ago while annual housing starts totalled 139,680 in 2015/2016, up by 12% compared with 2014/2015. This highlights that the first three months of 2016 saw a slowdown’

With the average price for a property in London now exceeding £500,000 new research shows that just 46% of home listed matches this price or less.
The analysis from fixed fee estate agent eMoov examined current stock levels across all of the major portals, recording the total levels listed for each London borough, before comparing this to the level of stock listed for £550,000 or less.
The research then took the total stock under £550,000 and recorded it as a percentage of the total level of stock across the capital.

There are almost 30 million residential properties in the UK with the market linked to income, wealth and availability of income which makes is sensitive to the overall economic climate, according to a new report.
The overview from the Office of National Statistics (ONS) shows that as of 2014 there were 28.1 million properties and as the population continues to grow housing is set to remain an important topic.
Since 1980, there has been considerable fluctuation in the UK housing market. Overall, there has been growing demand and relatively limited supply growth. House prices have been increasing, and first time buyers are finding it more difficult to get on the property ladder while home ownership among younger age groups generally has declined.

More than 1,600 acres of sought-after Grade 1 Cambridgeshire farmland is for sale.
At about 1,200 acres, Farcet Farms, south of Peterborough, is the largest area of farmland to be brought to market in the county for five years.
Twenty miles away, another quality offering has surfaced at 467-acre West Fen Farm near March.

Communities Secretary Greg Clark has dismissed appeals for two separate solar farms, each proposed for green belt locations, one in Worcestershire and the other in Essex. In both cases the planning inspectors who held the recovered appeal inquires had recommended that the projects should be refused.
The Worcestershire project involved an 8.9 megawatt solar farm scheme on a single site straddling the boundary between Wychavon District Council and Bromsgrove District Council. Both planning authorities had rejected the project.
In his decision letter Greg stressed that the project represented inappropriate development in the green belt which would cause “harm to the landscape character and visual amenities of the area and to the setting and significance of listed buildings”.

North Yorkshire County Council's planning committee has incensed many environmentalists as well as residents in and around Kirby Misperton by granting oil and gas company Third Energy planning permission to undertake exploratory fracking tests. The permission was granted for tests to take place at an existing borehole site where conventional drilling for on shore gas has been underway for years.
The fracking proposal involves an existing two-mile deep well called KM8, that was drilled in 2013. The decision to give fracking the green light came after two days of deliberations.

The usual seasonal dip in home lending in the first quarter of the year didn’t seem to happen in London as the latest data shows borrowing up quarter on quarter and year on year.
The data from the Council of Mortgage Lenders shows that home buyers in London borrowed £7.1 billion in the first three months of 2016, up 6% quarter on quarter and 41% on a year ago. They took out 21,400 loans, down 2% on the previous quarter but up 20% compared to the first quarter 2015.
First time buyers borrowed £2.9 billion, down 7% on the fourth quarter 2015 but up 19% on the first quarter last year. This equated 10,700 loans, down 10% quarter on quarter but up 3% year on year.

Scottish rents increased just 0.6% year on year and were down 0.4% month on month in April, marking the smallest annual rise seen since the start of 2013, the latest index shows.
Across Scotland the average rent now stands at £542, but Edinburgh and the Lothians shun the wider slowdown with a record 10.5% jump in rents since last year.
The data from the Your Move index also shows that tenant arrears are escalating as the level of late rent climbed for the second consecutive month, up to 11.6%.

Confidence has returned to the commercial property lending market in the UK as new loan originations hit a post crisis high, new figures shows.
Indeed, the value of outstanding loan books saw its first increase since 2008, according to the most comprehensive study of the UK’s commercial property lending market from De Montfort.
The total amount of outstanding debt at the year end in 2015 was £168.4 billion, representing a 1.9% increase from £165.2 billion at the year-end in 2014, and the first increase recorded since 2008.

Looming interest only mortgage due dates have driven a surge in sales of lump sum equity release plans to 40% of the market in the UK in the first quarter of 2016, according to a market monitor report.
Some 40% of people are taking a single lump sum advance to reduce their debts, up from 30% for the same period in 2015, the data from the report from Key Retirement shows.
The firm believes that the surge is largely being driven by customers who need the maximum cash available rather than drawdown as they are using the lump sum to pay off shortfalls in interest only mortgages. Average amounts released through equity release are now £76,000 and as high as £134,000 in London.

A five-year farm business tenancy is available on a mixed Northamptonshire farm near Oundle.
Brook Farm has its 460 acres divided into arable and grassland and is currently farmed by a tenant.
Located seven miles from Corby, the farm’s land is all in a ring-fence with a central yard that hosts a range of traditional and modern buildings, including some grain storage and general stores for fertiliser and farm machinery.

The boss of one of Britain’s biggest estate agent chains appears to have called the top of the property market, saying there has been a big slump in demand from buyers after the nation has “reached the limit” on house prices.
Paul Smith, whose company operates Haart, Felicity J Lord, Spicer McColl and Darlows chains across the UK, said there was “trouble in paradise” and sellers would have to cut prices to find buyers.

A lack of suitable office space in Scotland’s key cities, combined with rising rents, is leading to companies looking to take offices in locations outside the city centre, new research shows.
According to the latest Scottish Office Market report from real estate firm Savills, take-up of office space outside the central business districts of Aberdeen, Edinburgh and Glasgow was 4% higher in the first quarter of 2016 than the previous quarter.
The firm believes this trend is set to increase as occupiers continue to be attracted by the low rents on offer in out of town locations, where in some cases there can be a 50% discount on the £30 per square foot prime rents being achieved in the city centre.